A Super-Healthy Butter

Peanuts, chickpeas, almonds, hazelnuts. Those are all healthy things by themselves, but when we make butter out of them, we put in a ton of oils. Yes, oils do have good healthy fats, but let’s be honest — how many of us actually only manage to eat recommended servings of anything with the word “butter” in it? Yeah. I didn’t raise my hand either.

So I decided to use something else: mung beans.

To be honest, smashing mung beans and making it yummy isn’t a new invention — mung bean paste is something used across Asia to jazz up pastries. This mung bean butter is more like a simplified version of an old Chinese favorite.

Whoa. That just sounded like a description of me, in comparison to my parents.

(Don’t be freaked out by the 330 calories thing. Unless you’re a stegosaurus or other 1,000-pound vegetarian animal, there is no way you’ll be able to stomach a straight 1/2 cup of mung beans. Don’t take that as a challenge. I’m not paying for your stool softeners.)

Mung Bean Butter

The taste: Depending on how much sugar you put in it, it can range from “sweeter than a promotion-chasing subordinate” to subtly sweet. The mung bean gives it a slightly beanish taste and a thick buttery texture (oh, now you’re paying attention).

Ingredients:

Somemung beans.Red, green, whatever. Just don’t use chickpeas ’cause this ain’t no hummus.

Some sugar.I’ve never met a sugar I didn’t like.

Steps:

1. Cook the mung beans. Soak them overnight, then boil them in the morning until they’re soft. Takes about 30 minutes to boil, or 10 minutes if you have a pressure cooker (we may not have an egg whisk but we sure as heck have a pressure cooker #asiankitchenswag).

2. Take out the beans and blend them until they’re really really really smooth. Like, seriously smooth. Smoother than Justin Timberlake in “Suit and Tie.”

3. Put ’em in a saucepan and cook on Medium until it’s thick. Thick as peanut butter, as thick as your geeky nerd glasses from 5th grade.

The Extra Mile:

Serve with toasted baguettes, on croissants, or on ice cream. Fill your cake with it. Fill your crepes with it. Fill your yearning stomach with it. Pretty much wherever peanut butter or nutella can go, so can this mung bean butter.

I love your moong bean butter idea! We Indians make this regularly. Its called Moong Halwa (which is a dessert to die for). Because its cooked with oodles of ghee! You’ve stumbled upon an age old brilliant idea 🙂

Reblogged this on naomivaldivia.com and commented:
I am a huge fan of mung beans, or as my grandma called them, mungo beans. I will definitely be trying this recipe. I’ve got a bag of the beans in my pantry to use right now!

Haha yep! I don’t know if you’ve had mung beans before but it tastes like those. (I like to state the obvious. Obviously.) It tastes like sweet mung beans and it goes really well with toasted baguettes. I would’ve used a baguette for the photo but I was too lazy and I’d already eaten most of it…